It’d be petty to yell at him about this. About not telling me. About turning around and walking away from the caravan without a word. “You’re going to get us both killed if you go off looking for it on your own, you know. And if I was going to die on account of you, I’d rather have done it weeks ago before I had to do all this walking.” So maybe I was a little petty.
“Amani, you are not a part of this if I—” Jin stopped abruptly. My eyes followed his behind me. I saw a flash of blue uniforms. It was all I needed to see.
Jin grabbed my hand as I moved to run, pulling me sideways instead, into a narrow side alley. The cool of the shade folded over me, and we both flattened ourselves in the shadows as the Gallan soldiers descended on the Camel’s Knees.
“All caravans must submit to inspection.” The Gallan soldier spoke Mirajin with a thick accent that came from the back of his throat and made it sound like he was gargling water while talking.
“We’ve already searched them.” One of the Mirajin guards stepped forward. “They have nothing. We were about to release them, sir.”
“We are to search again. Orders of General Dumas.” The Gallan soldier waved his men forward even as the caravan drew back.
The city guard had moved through the caravan’s bags like a lazy desert heat, but the Gallan soldiers tore through like a storm, only with more ill will. I stared as bags were ripped off of camels’ sides, what was left of our supplies emptied into the street. Yasmin was forced to raise her hands above her head while the Gallan soldiers searched her slowly.
Then there was a shout. A young Gallan held up what was left of one of the saddlebags. He’d sliced into it with a knife, peeling the layers of leather apart, and he was holding what looked like a thin silk bag. He tipped it sideways and something fell out, scattering in the afternoon wind. It looked like fine blue thread, almost like hair. Jin swore.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Medicines.” Jin said. “Only ones made from magic, not science.” That couldn’t be right. There were plenty of desperate charlatans across the desert who sold red water and claimed it was cure all Djinni blood, but nobody believed in that. But then, they didn’t hide it in the linings of their saddlebags, either. “Magic’ll cost anyone his head,” Jin said grimly. “Figures that Parviz wanted to avoid the city.”
I watched as Parviz was dragged forward and shoved to his knees in front of the soldier who’d spoken Mirajin. My hand flew to my gun at the same moment that the Gallan soldier pulled out his. My anger was sudden. They didn’t belong in our desert. They didn’t belong in my bloodline, either. I was a desert girl. I hated that half of me came from these foreigners.
I could shoot him.
The thought slid into my mind as neatly as a bullet slotted into a gun. It might not save Parviz, but I could try. Before I could move, Yasmin burst forward, shoving her way past the Mirajin guard. She flung herself between her father and the soldier, straight into the line of my shot. The soldier’s gun didn’t drop; it just stayed trained on Yasmin now instead of Parviz. His finger went to the trigger. Mine was already there.
“Stop.” The Mirajin guard stepped forward. “You will not shoot him here.”
“It is law that he be executed,” the Gallan soldier said. “General Dumas’s orders.” He said the name again, as if it carried the weight of God’s own command.
“It’s law for smugglers to stand trial before execution,” the Mirajin guard countered. “Prince Naguib’s orders.”
I felt Jin stiffen behind me at the name the same time as I did. Naguib was here. Commander Naguib, who had held a gun to my head and shot Tamid through the knee. Of all the people to save them. The pistol was reholstered.
I sagged back against the cool wall as the caravan was rounded up to be imprisoned. Jin and I stayed still in the mouth of the alley. When we couldn’t hear footsteps anymore, his body relaxed against mine.
“You know, I never believed in fate until I met you,” he said, tipping his head back against the wall with a deep sigh. “Then I started thinking coincidence didn’t have near so cruel a sense of humor.”
“You’re a real charmer, anyone ever tell you that?”
“They have, actually, but usually they say it without rolling their eyes.”
We leaned back in silence. A line of laundry drifted lazily above us in the afternoon heat as I took stock of the situation. We were stuck in a city with the Gallan, their great destroyer of cities, and Naguib, and now the caravan was gone. “We need to get out of here,” I said.
“And what about everyone else, Bandit?” Every time he called me that it made something inside me pull toward him that I couldn’t quite shake. “Planning to leave them all behind?”
I wasn’t planning on leaving you behind. “I’m not planning anything,” I said instead. “I haven’t thought that far ahead.” But now that I did think about it, Jin was right. I knew what most of the Camel’s Knees would do if they were me. This was the desert. You took care of yourself and your own. The rest got left in the sand to die. Like Tamid.
“There’s a train straight to Izman tomorrow,” Jin said. “That’s about as far ahead as you need to think.”
“So come with me.” The words were out too quick. “You’re not going to find the bomb here without getting yourself killed. You’ve got to know that. And if we stay much longer, both of us are going to wind up dead.”
Something between us seemed to still. I watched the slow rise and fall of his shoulders as he took a deep breath. Then a second one. A third. “All right.”
“All right?” I’d been ready to argue and drag him out of here. But all the fight had gone out of him with those two words. “That’s it? You’re not going to smart-talk your way around me?”
“All right,” Jin repeated. He spread his hands wide like he was surrendering, though the grim set of his mouth made it seem like he’d rather do anything but. “You’re right. So what do you suggest we do?”
I was feeling bolder than I ever had. “We could just keep running, Jin. If we had to.”
“You mean if I wanted to.” His eyes searched mine, and for one second they looked as dark and focused as they had in the few moments after he’d kissed me on the train. My eyes were probably as wild as that second, too. The last time we’d really stood this close. On the edge of living or dying. Of wanting and needing.
“Tell me we couldn’t do it.” Jin interrupted my thoughts. “Tell me that the two of us together, we couldn’t get every one of the Camel’s Knees out of the city alive if we really tried. Hell, tell me you couldn’t do it on your own if you set your stubborn head to it.” A small smile was creeping back. “Tell me that and we’ll walk away. Right now. Go and save ourselves and leave them to die. All you’ve got to do is say the word. Tell me that that’s how you want your story to go and we’ll write it straight across the sand to the sea. Just say it.”
My story.